From the bathroom stall where Timmy is taking care of business: “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

___________

Last night, Eric walked into the house and suddenly stopped, bent at the waist and examined the wall. “Um…who drew a smiley face on the wall?” Three chorused with “Not me, I didn’t.” And one younger daughter looked guiltily at her daddy with a half-grin on her face. (She had to clean the wall off.)

__________

Later, I glance at my feet in the girls’ room to see an orange X on the carpet. “Um, who did this?” Older daughter looks guiltily at me.

“Really? Ladies, when you were little itty bitty, we had this conversation. Perhaps you remember it? Where are you allowed to draw?”

“On paper.”

“Where?”

“On paper.”

“So not walls? How about carpets? What about on Timmy? No? Okay, then please keep the drawings off of my house and non-paper things. Okay?”

__________

Alex: In my folder, there is a permission slip for doing wrestling.

Me: Yes?

Alex: I’m not going to do wrestling.

Me: (grinning to myself) That’s fine.

__________

This morning, breakfast has been eaten. Timmy asked for a second bowl of Lucky Charms. I pour him one. When I come back, he is finishing said bowl and Megan is sitting in front of a foot-wide pile of Lucky Charms…which is mysteriously lacking marshmallows. I think she thought I wouldn’t notice.

Megan hung her head. Her face was sad. She spoke very quietly, “I had a big oops today.”

For context, a few weeks ago we started asking our kids three questions, usually at dinner.

How were you brave today? How were you kind today? How did you fail today?

They have become regular conversation for us. At least once a day, I hear, “Mommy, I have my kind thing!” or “Mommy, I was brave today!” It’s pretty cool, and it has opened up much better conversations about their days than just “How was school?” ever did. (And I cannot take credit for this. It came from this article.)

So we’ve been asking these things for awhile. And to be honest, the third question has been the hardest. They didn’t get the concept of “fail” very well. I explained it as an “oops.” Anything you say or do or think that afterwards you think, “Oops, I shouldn’t have done that.” Or “Oops, I should have done that differently.” So we have “oops” moments. And it works. But mostly our “oops” things are breaking a pencil or falling down or dropping something. And I’ve wondered if they were really getting the concept. Until Wednesday. That’s when Megan spoke up.

She hung her head. She dropped her voice. She looked very sad. She said, “I made a big oops today.”

“What happened?” I asked, seeing the seriousness of this answer.

“I was very not kind. I said something I shouldn’t have.” Turns out she’d had a fight with a little boy on the playground. And she’d told him she would never, ever be his friend again. It wasn’t earth-shattering. But she’d been unkind, and she knew it. And the whole thing had settled uncomfortably in her heart. She hurt over her mistake.

“I see,” I said. “Well, I’m glad you told me. And I’m glad you see how that wasn’t kind.” We talked about how God nudges our hearts when we fail, especially when we hurt someone else. “What do you think you need to do?”

“Say I’m sorry,” she said.

“I think you’re right. And that’s the neat thing about seeing an oops. We can ask God to forgive us. We can ask the other person to forgive us, and then we can let it go. It doesn’t mess us up forever.”

She nodded, and we went on with dinner. And then last night at dinner, she said in between bites of bread and chicken, “I told Gage that I was sorry today and I would be his friend. And he said he was sorry and he’d be my friend, too.”

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear that!” I said. “And I’m so proud of you for doing the hard thing and saying you’re sorry. It was very brave of you.” She grinned at me, clearly settled again.

And I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen, especially in this volatile election season, if we grown-ups had the same sense as our littles. To see how we’ve hurt others when we accuse and call names and refuse to “be friends” with each other in all our grown-up ways. And having seen our “oops,” simply to apologize and to accept another’s apology, too. We don’t have to agree. But we can be kind. And when we fail and hurt another person, we can apologize.

Just like Meg. She really does get what it means to “fail.” And she faced it, owned it, made it right as best she could. It’s not easy to do what she did. That’s why, this week, she’s totally my hero. I want to learn to be just like her.

Much has been said recently on the abuse of power involved in situations of sexual assault. How someone (usually male, but not always) thinks, “I am ________ (rich, powerful, important, me); therefore, your body belongs to me if I want it.” It’s offensive. Horrific. Untenable. It is wrong.

But there has been, in all of this discussion, a real silence that concerns me. The focus has been on one man, but as I’ve pondered the whole thing, I’m beginning to wonder about that fact.

Because the abuse of power is not limited to sexual arenas.

• It’s the pastor who uses charisma and the Bible to bully and control his congregation.
• It’s politicians who believe that a position of leadership guarantees them the right to do or say whatever they want…or to force whatever legislation fits their purposes. On either side of an aisle.
• It’s the woman who controls the PTO/PTA and uses it to manage other parents and the school’s culture or even to skim money off the books (in extreme cases).
• It’s the newspaper editor or reporter who uses stories or the timing of released videos (our recent example) to affect the outcome that he or she most wants to see.

The truth is, we are all tempted by the lure of power. Every.last.one.of.us. No one, on either side of the aisle, has a soapbox to stand on. No one, in any denomination, can point a finger. No politician, stay-at-home mom, pastor, accountant, or farmer has any leg to stand on when it comes to pointing fingers about the abuse of power. We ALL do it.

I bully my kids to get my way (“Because I said so,” right?). The girls in junior high bullied me (and others) so they could prove their control of the group. My brother used “Mom left me in charge” to get us to do all the chores. I’ve known of (and worked under) more than one supervisor who bullied and tore down and micromanaged. Principals control their schools. Pastors manipulate their people. Men and women at all levels coerce another person into sexual acts they either do not want or go along with because they really don’t feel like they can refuse.

When we have power, we hold favors, belonging, acceptance, jobs, promotions, money (and on and on) over other people. And it is all abuse of power. All of it.

That doesn’t make it right. Of course it doesn’t. But, taking our recent example, if someone really cared about the abuse of sexual power in Washington, then they should be calling for a capital-wide cleansing of every Senator, Congressman, Judge or chief of staff who has ever behaved this way, too. And we need to apply this rule to governors, attorneys general, and cabinet members at every level. If the abuse of power is wrong, then let’s go after it.

But instead, the entire conversation was a weapon. An abuse of power, itself. Against one man. Whom (you will remember) I may or may not vote for, so please don’t hear this as an endorsement either way.

What it is…is a cry of frustration. The abuse of power is ALWAYS wrong. There is not ONE of us who can honestly say we’ve never abused our power in some arena. NONE of the political candidates, in particular, is free of guilt in this area.

And we must, we MUST, do better. All of us. In the halls of Washington. In issues of social justice. At the New York Times and CNN and Fox News. In the boardrooms and cubicles. At the gyms and bars and grocery stores and PTOs and car dealerships. Everywhere! We all have power over someone. Over something.

And we also have a choice. As we have seen illustrated over and over, we can abuse that power. OR we can use that power to protect. The opposite of to abuse is to PROTECT.

I cannot do much about the house of horrors that this year’s election has become. But I can choose differently, myself. So can you. So can “they.” Today, let us ALL look for ways we can PROTECT each other, lift each other up, stand in the gap for someone else. Just because I “can” do something, never means I should. Let’s remember that. ALL of us.

This week…

I’ve learned how to hook up the battery charger on my van’s battery.

I’ve learned what an ocular migraine is.

I’ve learned that when I’m in a tizzy, I send my kids into a tizzy.

I’ve learned that I still have high cholesterol.

I’ve learned that sometimes God drops opportunities in our laps, but we have to take them on.

I’ve learned that it’s possible to blog anonymously.

I’ve learned that there is no storage space in the Cambridge FedEx location.

I’ve learned that Alex is not squeamish about pulling out his own teeth.

I’ve learned that my worry is a form of pride.

I’ve learned that Eric’s drive to work and back is really pretty in the fall.

I’ve learned (again) that God always meets us where we are. And He really, really does answer prayer.

She is 6 now. Erin made sure we knew exactly when she was born, and she was not permitted to say she was six until after lunch on Friday. But she made it. She is 6.

And she is so spectacular. She is power and push and idea and follow-through. She is all at once and everywhere. She is adventure and bravery and excitement and try-it-all. She is spunky. She is Meg.

But she is also growing up. This year, she’s so much deeper than she’s been. She was the first to climb the doorways until her head bumped the top. But she would not, would not, set foot inside the lighthouse that the other 3 climbed with Daddy on vacation this year. She knew that wasn’t her thing. She knew it. She owned it. And she waved from the ground…no regrets!

She started Kindergarten this fall. She was very nervous and ready and excited and scared. She can already read, but she’s learning so much about other, much more valuable things, like how to appreciate her Autistic classmate and how to be a friend and how to be brave and kind and fail, all in one day, and still start each new day with God at her side.

I find this little version of me both challenging and reassuring. Her natural bent is to go forward. Have the idea…DO the idea. She doesn’t always PLAN the idea, but she takes it on in huge bites anyway. She is hard-headed, but soft-hearted. She is easily hurt, if we’re not careful. But she can’t not go forward anyway.

And I hope, with all my heart, that I can guard that part of her. Whatever God’s plan for Megan entails, I want her to push forward, all the way to the heart of it. All the way to His heart. I don’t want to squash her bravery or make her afraid to risk. Be wise, yes. But lose the power of her personality, no.

Dearest Megan, Mommy loves you more than I can say. You are life and color and flame and laughter. You have the power to change the world, and I will always be here for you, cheering you on. You have made such a difference in my life, and I cannot wait to see what the world will become because you are in it.

So, the short version is that when I was a little kid, I was really sensitive. Empathetic. Really, I was.

But along the way, I got hurt. A lot hurt. In big ways by friends and strangers. In the normal everyday little ways of family and life. So I put it all away. I determined to do whatever I could to avoid getting hurt. To stay out of reach of the people who had hurt me. And I was good at it. For many years now, my walls have been high and my personal space miles wide. Except for a few, I wouldn’t be touched.

But.

I’ve been changing. I’ve been reading. I’ve been learning. I’ve been dipping my tiptoes into the water of being all-me again, or maybe for the very first time. There have been lots of pieces all converging. But at the center is me. Just me. Wondering if I want to spend the rest of my life the way I’ve spent the first (almost) 40 years.

And I don’t think I do. Not anymore. I have too much to offer to hide anymore. So I’m trying. I’m letting down the guard, just a bit. I’ve opened up to the possibility that all the hurt wasn’t so much about me, about my broken-ness, and was more about someone else’s issues. Maybe I’m not the only broken one.

Of course, it’s really hard. And freak-me-out terrifying. And I totally suck at it. Changing and feeling and being seen and letting myself fail. But I think, I really do think, that it’s worth it. So I’m learning

• To feel my way through instead of shutting down emotionally.
• To risk that someone will actually accept me instead of isolate me and laugh at me.
• To chance empathy and see if maybe, just maybe, holding someone’s pain won’t sink me in my own. And if it does, maybe we can stand back up together.

And then yesterday, Alex came back into the house shrieking. I was in the basement, and I fully expected to see blood everywhere. Thankfully, it wasn’t blood. But it was wasp stings, two of them – on the hand and on the leg. And he was sobbing. The tears were literally dripping off his face. Snotty and upset and trying to hold it together and act okay, but just falling apart all the same. I quickly put together vinegar/baking soda paste to help the pain, and then I sat with him while he cried.

And y’all, it broke my very heart. I was deeply hurt for my little boy. And when the truth of that response hit me, I actually felt a strange joy. After all these years, it’s happening. I could see his pain and feel it with him. It was hard and good all at the same time.

But most of all, it was encouraging. There might be hope for me after all. Maybe I really can FEEL my way through this life after all. And even survive.